Who Sent This Mysterious Indiana Jones Package of Awesome to UChicago?

Well this has got to be the coolest story of college-application season so far: The admissions office over at the University of Chicago received an elaborate package yesterday full of homemade memorabilia addressed to one Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr. — also known as Indiana Jones.

Well this has got to be the coolest story of college-application season so far: The admissions office over at the University of Chicago received an elaborate package yesterday full of homemade memorabilia addressed to one Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr. — also known as Indiana Jones. And now they need your help in identifying the person responsible for all of this amazingness. The twist here, as fans of the Indiana Jones movies will tell you, is that Harrison Ford's character is supposed have studied at the University of Chicago. This new package, as revealed on the UChicago admissions tumblr (you read that right), contained stuff like a recreation of Abner Ravenwood's journal from Raiders of the Lost Ark:

Here's a page from the journal:

And pictures of Marion Ravenwood:

"That belongs in a museum," Jones would say. We'd love to know how long all of that took and how much research went in to adding all of that detail and, most of all, what kind of applicant would send in something so eye-catching to a college admissions office and not put their name on it. For now finding any answers will be very difficult—the sender remains a mystery. The folks over at U of C write:

What we don’t know: Why this came to us. The package does not actually have real stamps on it— the outside of the package was crinkly and dirty as if it came through the mail, but the stamps themselves are pasted on and look like they have been photocopied. There is no US postage on the package, but we did receive it in a bin of mail, and it is addressed to the physical address of our building, Rosenwald Hall, which has a distinctly different address from any other buildings where it might be appropriate to send it (Haskell Hall or the Oriental Institute Museum). However, although now home to the Econ department and College Admissions, Rosenwald Hall used to be the home to our departments of geology and geography.

It's been suggested that the package is a marketing ruse:

And that could be, but the Indiana Jones Blu-Ray was just marked down. And spending money and time on the University of Chicago just doesn't seem optimal — usually you'd want to target news sites and magazines if you want them to write things. It was also a big gamble: What if the mail attendants on Rosenwald Hall didn't post this on the Internet? Obviously that's all hypothetical. Our personal theory (and one we want to stick to) is that some amazing Indiana Jones fan did this — so don't ruin our dreams, Paramount. And we're not going to get our answers until the U of C does. So, guys and gals, let's lend a hand:

Internet: help us out. If you’re on Reddit (we’re not) or any other nerdly social media sites where we might get information about this, feel free to post far and wide and e-mail any answers, clues, ideas, thoughts, or musings toindianajonesjournal@uchicago.edu (yes, we did set up an email account just to deal with this thing).

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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